This invention is related to airfield lighting (e.g. runway, taxiway and obstruction), and more particularly, to a side-emitting lighting system utilizing a side-emitting Light Emitting Diode (LED).
Airport edge lighting has been in existence for many years utilizing incandescent lighting technology. Conventional designs that utilize incandescent lights have higher power requirements, lower efficiency, and low lamp life which needs frequent, costly relamping by maintenance professionals.
Some airfield-lighting manufacturers are using more efficient devices such as LEDs where the LEDs are arranged in multiple rings shining outward. Optics of some sort are then used to concentrate the light in the vertical and horizontal directions to meet Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) specifications.
Recently, implementations utilizing top emitting LEDs have been introduced which require additional light directing components as well as costly reflection and/or refraction techniques in order to comply with current FAA specifications and predetermined criterion.
What is needed is an airfield edge-lighting system that can utilize as few as one LED in a more efficient manner more efficiently while meeting the required FAA standards.